The length of the first tour of guard duty was increased considerably, for the first watch went on as soon as the wagons stopped. They were getting fairly into the Indian country now. Directly north of them lay the range of the Pawnees; to the west of that the home of the Cheyennes; directly west of the Little Arkansas roamed the Arapahoes, and to the southwest were the Kiowas and Comanches, both of the latter superb cavalrymen. The last three tribes were being stirred by jealous New Mexicans to harass the caravans. And the interest of all these tribes, and of others beyond them in several directions, was centered on the prairie between the Little Arkansas and the valley of the Arkansas, eastward from where the latter river left the mountains. This was the great range of the buffalo, and the buffalo was food, clothing, habitation, and figured very largely in other necessaries of the savage tribes. The peculiar, curving, and ever-shifting migration of the great herds was followed by hunting parties, which became war-parties in a wink. Many were the bloody battles fought between the tribes on that stretch of prairie between the Little Arkansas and the two Coon Creeks. The Pawnees claimed sovereignty over that part of the country around Pawnee Rock, but it was one that the tribe did not dare to enjoy with any degree of permanence. Raiding parties from the south, west, and north constantly challenged their title, and because of these collisions hardly a hunting party dared show itself unless in strength. There were, it is true, small bands roaming the plains, especially after dark, which traveled on foot; but these were out with the avowed and set purpose of stealing horses, on which, if successful, they made their escape and rode home. This especially was a Pawnee trick, and especially adept were the Pawnees in creeping up to a herd of draft animals and stampeding the whole bunch. More than one party of traders had thus been left afoot in mid-prairie and forced to abandon what they could not carry on their backs. While the Pawnee country was supposed to be north of the Platte, up around the Loup Fork, they often raided in force well into the Comanche and Apache country and were as much at home on the south side of the Arkansas River as on any other part of the plains.